Dark Beauty Quotes

“the human ego has more gravitational attraction than most gas giants.”
― Peter Cawdron, Dark Beauty

“Curiosity kills time as much as cats.”
― Peter Cawdron, Dark Beauty

“To the Arcs, it seemed there were three forces at work in human society: love, hate and indifference. And out of these, the worst was indifference, as it always sided with”
― Peter Cawdron, Dark Beauty

“The dramatization of the My Lai massacre in this novella is fictional but is based on the account of Hugh Thompson, as described in The Forgotten Hero of My Lai by Trent Angers, and Thompson’s personal account of the My Lai incident at Tulane University in December, 1994. If the language in this section feels stilted, it’s because these are the words spoken by Thompson and his crew, as recorded in the official documentation of the incident.”
― Peter Cawdron, Dark Beauty

“We are all children,” Smear said. “We always will be. We just forget that from time to time. It matters not how old we get, only that we remember who we really are.”
― Peter Cawdron, Dark Beauty

“The battle of My Lai.”
― Peter Cawdron, Dark Beauty

“The horror of death came not in the slash of a knife or a splash of blood. It came from knowing that life could be cut down as easily as plucking a flower from a field. One moment, there was a glimmer in someone’s eyes; the next, a corpse with no more hope for tomorrow than a rock.”
― Peter Cawdron, Dark Beauty

“That was the thing about scientific advances—to the uninitiated, science was the work of alchemists and wizards.”
― Peter Cawdron, Dark Beauty

“Ignaz Semmelweis,”
― Peter Cawdron, Dark Beauty

“John Snow”
― Peter Cawdron, Dark Beauty

“The Arcs had seen Gandhi rising from obscurity, inspiring others to be kind rather than violent, only to be gunned down on his way to prayer. And they’d seen Adolph herding gays and Jews and anyone who disagreed with him into gas chambers, burning their bodies as though they were wood. Oh, Hitler never sullied his hands. He never visited the camps that exterminated millions. He didn’t need to. All he needed was adoration. To the Arcs, it seemed there were three forces at work in human society: love, hate and indifference. And out of these, the worst was indifference, as it always sided with hate. Whoosh went another tube. Life is but the flicker of a flame dancing above a candle.”
― Peter Cawdron, Dark Beauty

“Dark Beauty is a tribute to the writing of Kurt Vonnegut and, in particular, his groundbreaking novel Slaughterhouse-Five. There are a lot of great authors in the science fiction genre, but few have the gravitas of Vonnegut. Although he’s largely unknown to modern readers, his novels were unconventional and controversial in their time. Vonnegut was brutally honest. He used science fiction as a critique of modern society, religion, war and authority. His writing is laced with satire and humor while demanding deep consideration. He wasn’t afraid to question the blind loyalty of patriotism and sought to stir the readers’ thinking, reasoning and imagination.”
― Peter Cawdron, Dark Beauty

“want to stand as close to the edge as I can without going over. Out on the edge, you see all the kinds of things you can't see from the center. Kurt Vonnegut”
― Peter Cawdron, Dark Beauty

“heroism isn’t found down the barrel of a gun, but rather in standing up for what is right.”
― Peter Cawdron, Dark Beauty

“Life is but the flicker of a flame dancing above a candle.”
― Peter Cawdron, Dark Beauty